The present invention relates generally to a system for correcting an unbalance in rotating components that can result in an unacceptable level of vibration during operation. More specifically, in one form the present invention relates to a balancing system including two mass asymmetric rings that are coupled to the rotating component through a splined interface. Although the present invention was developed for balancing gas turbine engine components, application in other areas of technology are contemplated herein, such as high speed machine tool applications, gearboxes, actuators and motors.
It is recognized that gas turbine engines include components that rotate at high rates of speed. The dynamic unbalance of the components can lead to severe vibration that reduces the useful life of the component.
The engineers and scientists developing gas turbine engine technology recognize that one can add or remove material at select locations to achieve proper balance for the component. Many of the techniques included the addition and removal of separate balance weights from the component and the actual removal of material from the component. The prior balancing techniques that relied upon the adding of separable balance weights are often limited by issues such as: configuration management and structural integrity of the separable weights, additional part count, and lack of flexibility in adjustment. In many of the prior techniques to balance the component, the component had to be removed and sent to a machine shop for machining, which is time consuming and adds the possibility of a machining error in the process. Alternatively, the component may have been hand machined without removal from the machine. In either case, the machining of the component to perfect a balance condition can be very difficult and in many cases any error in machining is irreversible.
Although there are currently many methods to reduce unbalance conditions in rotatable components there remains a significant need for further technological solutions in this area. The present invention satisfies this need and others in a novel and unobvious way.